Abel to Yzerman

Just when you think life without hockey had become all too comfortable for Deep Digger Captain Ansar Khan(!), he staggers in from nowhere to fill our heads with brilliance. Apparently convinced the in-depth scouting reports he wrote two days after the Anaheim series aren’t quite enough to merit a consistent paycheck, MLive’s Wing beat writer is back with a vengeance.

His blog from last night is rife with nuggets of insight like this: “It’s really different,’’ Rafalski said Thursday and this:”“I got to start practicing face-offs,’’ Kopecky said; and finally, this: “It was unfortunate,’’ Drake said.

With a few exceptions (Smith, Andersson, Emmerton and Pyett), the future of Wing hockey has descended on TC. Bruce MacLeod’s first report from the prospect tourney features an outlook from the league’s most valuable assistant GM.

“The biggest part of it is we get to judge the kids against their own level,” said Nill. “Before, we’d have a training camp and the Kindls, Rynos, Ritolas would have to play against Nick Lidstrom, Steve Yzerman and Brendan Shanahan. First of all, they’re going to be in total awe of these guys, so they’re nervous. They’re probably not as strong as the veterans. They can’t really show what they can do. If a guy’s a big hitter, he’s not going to run into Nick Lidstrom. He’s just not going to do it in training camp. There’s too much respect.”

Ken Holland just wrapped up an NHL media conference call, during which he answered the standard “how long can Lidstrom play?” question, a few on Kronwall, one on Grigorenko, another regarding Bubba and a gut wrencher on the shaft job in May.

You know, for us obviously we look back. We lost two key guys on defense: Nick Kronvall late in the regular season. In the middle of the San Jose series we lost Mathieu Schneider. We felt had either one of those two guys been healthy maybe we could have had a different outcome.

I’m sure there are a few misguided souls out there who actually believed that (a) Brendan Shanahan would actually, eventually, return to the Wings or (2) Detroit would retire his jersey in homage to his 8 full seasons in Hockeytown.

Well, you’d better just stand by for hockey. How do I know it’s close? Because former Deep Digger Captain Teddy Kulfan has checked in from his long summer’s hiatus and graced us with a few quotes from The Swede.

“It was a great experience for our younger guys going deep into the playoffs (last season) and playing when it really matters,” Lidstrom said. “They’ll build on that and get better.”

Nothing too deep in Kulfan’s Wing Notebook, but you know we don’t like to place too much pressure on our brittle beat writers. Just let them work their way back into form.

The LONGEST SUMMER IN HISTORY is ending. Really. Unfortunately it’s ending at the same time as the UM football season, a fact that had fetal implications for me yesterday for about an hour. Michigan football’s a recipe for sadness even if you weren’t already aware that a tough Hemlock High School team has a chance against them if they feature a scrambling quarterback.

What? I’ve returned from a thirteen-day sabbatical and life is nifty. We’ll do a little round-up this morning then get back into a regular routine of posting. Stand by because the Empire of Blogs is going to look completely different in a matter of hours, or days…real soon. Paul’s been working all summer on a site revamp and it’s going to be real frigging cool. It could happen any minute. Keep hitting refresh every 22 seconds.

Camp opens in two weeks up in TC. September 14th we’ll open up the voting for the official replacement for Fire on Ice. This week we’ll review the submissions and make fun of each of them. There’s still time to send in your own art so get to it.

Woops. Sergei Fedorov, steadfast in his refusal to speak with Russian media, spoke with the Russian media again yesterday. And, if the reports are accurate, it would appear the chances of a return to Hockeytown are as slim as ever. A2Y’s Russian correspondent, working out of his Wisconsin home office, provides this translation to a Sport-Express article that ran last evening.

It’s the business. And when in this business someone tries to screw you, it greatly activates those qualities I used to fight through and win all those years. Perseverance, judgment of the general situation, my career… Do you understand what I am talking about? We agreed about a certain contract with the club’s management, and I found a completely different one the next day when I came to sign it. No one really knows of this story. I really didn’t have a good “aftertaste” after leaving Detroit.

You know it’s August when the first thing I’ve posted in five days is a story about moving a letter 8 inches from port to starboard, or starboard to port depending on your viewpoint. The Wings will be the only team in the league to alter the traditional placement of the captain’s “C”.

The first thing you notice about Nicklas Lidstrom’s new jersey is the “C.” It’s on the right side, instead of the left…The letters had to be moved because the new jerseys are made of multiple panels, and there wasn’t room for them above the tip of the Winged Wheel on the left side without hitting a seam. And if you look at some old Wings photos, that’s actually been done before, too.”

More on the moving of the “C” and the alternate “A"s, plus confirmation that some of our larger friends will be showing a bit more than we’re all comfortable with due to the “form fitting” style.

About Abel to Yzerman

Welcome to Abel to Yzerman, a Red Wing blog since 1977. No other site on the internet has better-researched, fact-laden and better prepared discussions than A2Y. Re-phrase: we do little research, find facts and stats highly overrated and claim little to no preparation. There are 19 readers of A2Y. No more, no less. All of them, except maybe one, are juvenile in nature. Reminding them of that in the comment section will only encourage them to prove that. Your suggestions and critiques are welcome: wphoulihan@gmail.com